Spatial Properties Of Images Research Articles

Innovative monochromatic x-ray source for high-quality and low-dose medical imaging.

An estimated 377 million diagnostic and interventional radiological exams are performed annually in the United States and approximately 4 to 5 billion globally. All use x-ray tubes that emit x-rays over a broad energy band, a technology that is more than a century old. Only a small fraction of the radiation is useful for imaging while the remaining fraction either increases the radiation dose received by the patient or degrades the image. Monochromatic x-rays can provide lower dose images in many of these radiological applications while maintaining or improving image quality. We report the development of the first monochromatic x-ray source suitable for low-dose, high-quality imaging in the clinic and demonstrate its first application and performance with mammography phantoms. X-ray fluorescence was used to generate monochromatic x-rays with selectable energies from 18 to 60keV. This patented technology was incorporated into a laboratory prototype of a monochromatic x-ray mammography system. Image quality was evaluated as a function of radiation dose in standard breast phantoms using the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) measured for high and low contrast masses and microcalcifications. Spatial imaging properties were assessed from these images as well as from modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis. Measurements using an iodine contrast agent were also performed. The results were compared to those obtained using a commercially available, conventional x-ray mammography system. Our prototype system reduced radiation dose by factors of five to ten times for the same SNRs as obtained from the conventional system. This performance was demonstrated in phantoms simulating a wide range of lesion sizes and microcalcifications in a variety of breast thicknesses. The high SNRs for very thick breast phantoms provide evidence that screening with less breast compression is possible while maintaining image quality. Contrast-enhanced digital mammography (CEDM) with monochromatic x-rays was shown to provide a simpler and more effective technique at substantially lower radiation dose. The MTF value at 20% was 9lp/mm. The monochromatic x-ray system is more sensitive for imaging a wide range of breast sizes and compositions than conventional broadband mammography. High image quality and lower dose are its hallmarks. It also makes CEDM much more effective than current methods developed for use with conventional broadband mammography systems.

Hyperspectral Unmixing via Nonnegative Matrix Factorization With Handcrafted and Learned Priors

Nowadays, nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF)-based methods have been widely applied to blind spectral unmixing. Introducing proper regularizers to NMF is crucial for mathematically constraining the solutions and physically exploiting spectral and spatial properties of images. Generally, properly handcrafted regularizers and solving the associated complex optimization problem are nontrivial tasks. In our work, we propose an NMF-based unmixing framework which jointly uses a learned regularizer from data and a handcrafted regularizer. To be specific, we plug learned priors of abundances where the associated subproblem can be addressed using various image denoisers, and we consider an <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{2,1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -norm as an example to illustrate the way of integrating handcrafted regularizers. The proposed framework is flexible and extendable. Both synthetic data and real airborne data are conducted to confirm the effectiveness of our method.

Land-Use and Land-Cover Mapping Using a Gradable Classification Method

Conventional spectral-based classification methods have significant limitations in the digital classification of urban land-use and land-cover classes from high-resolution remotely sensed data because of the lack of consideration given to the spatial properties of images. To recognize the complex distribution of urban features in high-resolution image data, texture information consisting of a group of pixels should be considered. Lacunarity is an index used to characterize different texture appearances. It is often reported that the land-use and land-cover in urban areas can be effectively classified using the lacunarity index with high-resolution images. However, the applicability of the maximum-likelihood approach for hybrid analysis has not been reported. A more effective approach that employs the original spectral data and lacunarity index can be expected to improve the accuracy of the classification. A new classification procedure referred to as “gradable classification method” is proposed in this study. This method improves the classification accuracy in incremental steps. The proposed classification approach integrates several classification maps created from original images and lacunarity maps, which consist of lacnarity values, to create a new classification map. The results of this study confirm the suitability of the gradable classification approach, which produced a higher overall accuracy (68%) and kappa coefficient (0.64) than those (65% and 0.60, respectively) obtained with the maximum-likelihood approach.

Unmasking the Perky Effect: Spatial Extent of Image Interference on Visual Acuity

We have previously argued that visual mental images are not substitutable for visual percepts, because the interfering effects of visual stimuli such as line maskers on visual targets differ markedly in their properties from the interfering effects of visual images (the “Perky effect”). Imagery interference occurs over a much wider temporal and spatial extent than masking, and unlike masking, image interference is insensitive to relative orientation. The lack of substitutability is theoretically interesting because the Perky effect can be compared meaningfully to real line masking in that both types of interference are visual, not due to optical factors (accommodative blur or poor fixation) or to high-level factors (attentional distraction, demand characteristics, or effects of uncertainty). In this report, however, we question our earlier position that spatial extents of interference are markedly different: when images and real lines are matched in contrast, which was not done previously, their interference effects have very similar spatial extents. These data add weight to the view that spatial properties of images and percepts are similar in respect to extent. Along with the wider temporal extent and the insensitivity to orientation, the new results remain compatible with our older hypothesis that to create a clear mental image in a region of visual space, incoming signals from the eye must be suppressed (Craver-Lemley and Reeves, 1992). We have pursued this idea in this report using “unmasking,” in which adding elements to the visual image in the region beyond the zone of suppression reduces the Perky effect.

A Comparison of In-Room Computerized Tomography Options for Detection of Fiducial Markers in Prostate Cancer Radiotherapy

To compare volumetric in-room computed tomography (CT) and kilovoltage (kV) cone-beam CT (CBCT) to planar imaging with respect to their ability to localize fiducial markers (FMs) for radiotherapy of prostate cancer. Image guidance options from two linear accelerators were compared in terms of identifying the center of gravity (COG) of FMs from the isocenter: a Siemens Primatom, where the couch is rotated 180 degrees from the treatment isocenter to the in-room CT vs. electronic portal imaging (EPI); and a Varian OBI system, where kV CBCT, EPI, and planar kV radiographs were compared. In all, 387 image pairs (CBCT = 133; CT = 254) from 18 patients were analyzed. A clinical tolerance of 3 mm was predefined as the acceptable threshold for agreement. COG location on in-room CT and EPI was in agreement 96.9%, 85.8%, and 89.0% of the time in the left-right (LR), superior-inferior (SI), and anterior-posterior (AP) directions, respectively, vs. 99.2%, 91.7%, and 93.2% for the CBCT and EPI analysis. The CBCT vs. kV radiographs were in agreement 100% (LR), 85.4% (SI), and 88.5% (AP), and EPI vs. kV radiographs were in agreement 100% (LR), 94.6% (SI), and 91.5% (AP) of the time. Identification of FMs on volumetric or planar images was found to be not equivalent (+/-3 mm) using either linear accelerator. Intrafraction prostate motion, interpretation of FM location, and spatial properties of images are contributing factors. Although in-room CT has superior image quality, the process of realigning the treatment couch to acquire a CT introduces an error, highlighting the benefits of a single isocentric system.

The spatial manifestation of forest succession in optical imagery: The potential of multiresolution imagery

Forest succession is a fundamental ecological phenomenon, which has significant implications for sustainable ecosystem management as well as biological, biophysical, and biogeochemical processes. Remote sensing is perhaps the only viable option for monitoring changes in forest ecosystems over large areas in a timely and cost efficient manner. This study investigates the spatial manifestation of forest succession in optical imagery through three types of models: a two-component spatial model, a canopy reflectance model (Geometric–Optical and Radiative Transfer, GORT) and a forest ecosystem dynamics model (ZELIG). The latter two models provide inputs to the former one to predict the spatial properties of images as a function of the combined effects of tree size and density, the spectral signatures of scene components and pixel size. An important source of information that is diagnostic of canopy structure has been identified: the spatial properties of multiresolution imagery. The sill of variograms of images of forest stands decrease with regularization, and in particular the rate of decrease is related to the size of trees. For stands with larger trees the sills of variograms decrease more slowly with increasing regularization than for stands with smaller trees. However, the spatial patterns for a scene with multiresolution imagery are also dependent on tree cover. This implies that the use of spatial patterns to estimate tree size will require independent estimates of tree cover as a preliminary step. Concept verification with an Ikonos 1-m panchromatic image for stands at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the Cascade Range of Oregon indicates the simulated spatial patterns exist in multiresolution imagery. This study demonstrates the potential to map tree size automatically from multiresolution imagery.

Stalking the elusive mental image screen

After thirty years of the current “imagery debate,” it appears far from resolved, even though there seems to be a growing acceptance that a cortical display cannot be identified directly with the experienced mental image, nor can it account for the experimental findings on imagery, at least not without additional ad hoc assumptions. The commentaries on the target article range from the annoyed to the supportive, with a surprising number of the latter. In this response I attempt to correct some misreadings of the target article and discuss some of the ideas and evidence introduced by the commentators – much of which I found helpful, even though they do not alter my basic thesis. I also further develop the idea that the spatial character of images may come from the way they are connected to our immediate or immediately-recalled environment (by attention or by visual indexes) and towards which we may orient while we are imaging, thus leaving the alleged spatial properties of images outside the head and freeing image-representations from having to be displayed on any surface.

Relationship between the characteristics of visual short-term memory in monkeys and the spatial properties of images.

Experiments were performed on Rhesus macaques to study the relationship between delayed visual differentiation processes and stimulus properties. These investigations showed that the processes of short-term storage of visual information in monkeys has significant features associated with differences in stimulus properties. These consisted of different durations of storage and motor response times. Because of these differences, stimuli (15 pairs) could be grouped into compact clusters on the bases of similarity between their delayed differentiation characteristics. These experiments characterized the processes of short-term information storage during the differentiation of stimuli differing in terms of spatial relationships between elements, as compared with stimuli differing in terms of other attributes (shape, color, etc.); spatial information was stored for shorter periods of time and motor response times were longer. It is suggested that visual short-term memory involves a set of mechanisms operating on attributes of different types and which, along with signs and working programs associated with the visual system, stores spatial discriminatory signs, in which the major role is played by visual-vestibular interactions.

Edge detection of color images using directional operators

This paper discusses an approach for detecting edges in color images. A color image is represented by a vector field, and the color image edges are detected as differences in the local vector statistics. These statistical differences can include local variations in color or spatial image properties. The proposed approach can easily accommodate concepts, such as multiscale edge detection, as well as the latest developments in vector order statistics for color image processing. A distinction between the proposed approach and previous approaches for color edge detection using vector order statistics is that, besides the edge magnitude, the local edge direction is also provided. Note that edge direction information is a relevant feature to a variety of image analysis tasks (e.g., texture analysis).

Development of an imaging vacuum-ultraviolet monochromator in the normal incidence region

An imaging vacuum-ultraviolet monochromator has been developed to provide the space-resolved impurity line emissions from magnetically confined plasmas. With minor modifications of a commercial normal incidence monochromator, a pinhole entrance slit and a microchannel plate detector displaced away from the exit slit, the instrument performs two-dimensional spectroscopic observations in the wavelength range from 400 to 2000 Å. Ray tracing has been performed to understand the spatial imaging properties in the practical geometric configuration. The measured spatial resolution is about 0.5 and 1 mrad in dispersion and vertical plane, respectively, with the entrance slit of 0.1 mm width and height. The results of the testing experiments and the measurements carried out on the JIPP T-IIU tokamak plasma are presented and discussed.

Confocal Image Properties of a Confocal Scanning Laser Visible Light FT-Raman Microscope

The confocal Raman microscope is an instrument designed for acquisition of high-contrast volumetric Raman spectral images of three-dimensional chemical structures. Little effort, however, has gone into the investigation of the spatial imaging properties of this class of confocal microscope. In this paper we present experimental results, obtained with a confocal scanning laser visible light FT-Raman microscope we built, that demonstrates the high depth resolution and enhanced Raman image contrast intrinsic to the confocal Raman microscope design. We explore these microscope properties through a combination of experimental measurement and theory based on a paraxial wave diffraction model.

Spatial imaging in the soft x-ray region (20–304 Å) utilizing the astigmatism of a grazing incidence concave grating

Soft x-ray (20–304-Å) astigmatic line shapes were measured in order to evaluate the spatial imaging properties of a Rowland mounted concave grating in grazing incidence. The practicability of coarse 1-D spatial imaging in the soft x-ray region is demonstrated. Spatial resolution equivalent to ∼4 cm at a source distance of 2 m can be achieved with practical parameters (e.g., sensitivity and time resolution) for a fusion diagnostic spectrograph. The results are compared to computer-generated ray tracings and found to be in good agreement. The ray tracing program which models the grazing incidence optics is discussed.